It is now well accepted that pool cleaning devices, such as automated submersible pool cleaning vehicles are essential to the proper maintenance of a pool, whether the pool be above or below ground. The typical vehicle includes a housing, a bottom frame and a filtering bag held between the two. The vehicle includes intake and outlet ports. Typically, the ports are in the form of a free swinging door. Additionally, the vehicle includes a motor assembly for moving drive wheels and for creating at least a partial vacuum so that water will be encourage to enter the intake ports.
As the typical submersible automated pool cleaner moves along the surface of the pool while underwater, water flows into the intake port and through to the filter bag. The typical pool cleaning vehicle may include one motor for moving the vehicle and another motor which acts as a pump for creating a partial vacuum, encouraging water to enter the intake ports. The vacuum creates a suction force for accomplishing this task.
Upon entering the filter bag, dirt and debris is trapped therein. Water then exits the housing and re-enters the pool through an outlet port, which similarly communicates with the filter bag. The re-entering water is cleaner and has less dirt and debris than before entering the filter bag.
As is well known, such submersible automated pool cleaning vehicles travel submerged in water and randomly cris-cross the pool during cleaning. The width of the typical pool cleaning vehicle is no more than 20″ and greater than 10″. It will be appreciated that it takes the vehicle a substantial amount of time to clean the entire pool surface. If a pool cleaning vehicle were wider for example, it would need to make fewer passes and cleaner would take place relatively more efficiently. However, any increase in the width of the vehicle also likely increases the weight of the vehicle.
A pool cleaner cannot be heavier than its owner can lift fully submerged. Thus, if the vehicle becomes heavier than its owner can lift from the water, it becomes useless. Accordingly, it is an object of most pool cleaning devices to be as light as possible to assist the owner in removing the vehicle, fully submerged, from the water.
Thus, another avenue of solving the problem of creating a pool cleaning vehicle which is both lightweight and efficient must be found. Simply increasing the width of the vehicle is not a satisfactory solution.
Others have similarly recognized the problem of pool cleaning vehicle inefficiency. For example, Horvath et al, U.S. Pat. No. 6,971,136, discloses a high pressure water jet system for stirring up dirt and debris from the pool surface in hopes that the stirred up dirt and debris will be sucked into the housing and trapped in the filter bag. While this system may have some potential at more effective cleaning it does not solve the problem of increasing the effective cleaning width of the pool cleaning vehicle.
What is needed is a pool cleaning vehicle which increases the effective cleaning width of the vehicle, while maintaining a useable mass, so that the vehicle can be removed from the pool without an undue burden on its user.